family values I

    An old drinking buddy of mine had come home from a two-week binge with a rose tattooed on his arm. Around the blossom was written, Fuck ’em all/ and sleep till noon. His wife made him have it surgically removed, but she hated the scar even more. Every time he touched it, he grinned. Some years later she tried to remove the grin with a wine bottle, but she only knocked out a couple of teeth, which made the grin even more like a sneer. The part that I don’t understand, though, is that they are still married. He is still grinning and she is still hating it.
    I didn’t have any tattoos or any marriages, but…
    ―James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss, Vintage, 1988, p. 100

( Read more... )